For Human Accumulations Alan Gignoux and Jenny Christensson are documenting the Niagara Falls of today – the waterfalls and the two cities of Niagara Falls in New York and Canada - in photographs and words in the form of interviews. Once, at the heart of an ancient forest, there was a beautiful waterfall, whose … Continue reading Human Accumulations: Documenting Niagara Falls→

An earlier post on this blog - The Hudson River School- explains the importance of Thomas Cole as the leading light of the Hudson River School and outlines his critical stance towards what he regarded as the wanton destruction of the American landscape by greedy speculators. Two related exhibitions currently on display at London’s National … Continue reading Thomas Cole and Ed Ruscha: Two Prophecies of American Decay→

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In Niagara: Two Centuries of Changing Attitudes, 1697-1901 (the catalogue that accompanied the Corcoran Gallery 1985 exhibition surveying historical artistic responses to Niagara Falls), art historian Jeremy Elwell Adamson tells us that Regis painted four wintertime Niagaras. He explains that the most famous of these, and one of the most popular paintings of the Falls … Continue reading Hidden in Havana→

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Niagara Falls has become associated with death in several ways: accidental death, which has been and remains a real possibility for those who venture too close the cataract's thundering waters, suicide and in the form of daredevil acts intended to defy death. The Lure of the Abyss According to Matthew Conheady, President and Founder of the … Continue reading Death and Defying Death at Niagara Falls→

Gillette's was not the only Utopian plan for the Falls - also in the 1890's William T. Love attempted to raise money to construct Model City, an urban development scheme designed around a canal and a hydroelectric plant, with housing for more than 1 million people. Love's plans collapsed after his investors backed out as … Continue reading Failed Utopias and Dystopian Futures→

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About this blog

Human Accumulationsexplores the themes of Nature, Progress and AmericanIdentity through the comparison of five iconic East Coast American landscapes, as they were represented by the Hudson River School artist Regis Gignoux, and as they appear today through the lens of his descendant, photographer Alan Gignoux.